Vladimir Zelensky's Victory Day Address

A masterful linkage, I think, of the usual theme of Victory Day—the fight against the Nazis in World War II—and the circumstances today.

You can also just read the English text, though I found the (very simple, yet I'm sure carefully crafted) delivery on the video and the occasional visuals added a lot, and there are English subtitles:

An excerpt from the beginning:

Can spring be black and white? Is there eternal February? Are golden words devalued? Unfortunately, Ukraine knows the answers to all these questions. Unfortunately, the answers are "yes".

Every year on May 8, together with the entire civilized world, we honor everyone who defended the planet from Nazism during World War II. Millions of lost lives, crippled destinies, tortured souls and millions of reasons to say to evil: never again!

We knew the price our ancestors paid for this wisdom. We knew how important it is to preserve it and pass it on to posterity. But we had no idea that our generation would witness the desecration of the words, which, as it turned out, are not the truth for everyone.

This year we say "Never again" differently. We hear "Never again" differently. It sounds painful, cruel. Without an exclamation, but with a question mark. You say: never again? Tell Ukraine about it.

I should note that, though some hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fought on the side of the Nazis during World War II, apparently about 4.5 million Ukraininian soldiers (of whom 1.4 million were killed) fought to defeat the Nazis. The Victory in Victory Day (which in Russian and Ukraine refers to the war in the European theater) was indeed a victory of Ukrainians, alongside Russians, Americans, English, French, and the other allies.

Comments

[Ketawa]

Thanks for posting this. In all sincerity, I loved it. It's tough to put into words how it feels to watch people defend their country against invasion, other than it makes me extremely emotional.

[DaivdBehar]

How sad is the extreme and toxic stupidity of the lawyer profession. They will tell the President, Putin is a head of state and cannot legally be killed. Meanwhile Putin is hunting Zelensky with impunity. You are ridiculously stupid.

The Jews would not have taken on the Wermacht. When they tried they did a great job. Instead, they would have hunted and killed the Nazi hierarchy, and the 20 oligarchs that put him into power. These included some in America. They kill their families. To deter. When we say, Never Again, that is the utilitarian answer. That would have saved the world 60 million deaths and $trillions in damages.

[Jerry B.]

Damn.

[Armchair Lawyer]

He is certainly a charismatic leader. It may not be overstating things to say that Zelensky was the difference between defeat and victory for Ukraine.

In other news, Ukraine is going to have an interesting decision coming up soon. Do they invade Russia?

What am I talking about you ask? Well, as previously predicted, we've seen limited Ukranian air strikes on supply depots in Russia which were supplying the Russian forces. However, now as Russia begins to attempt to drive to Donetsk, they are actually being pushed back near Kharkiv. The question here is, if needed to strategically circle around to the north, do Ukrainian forces cross into Russia proper?

There are political risks involved....such an action wouldn't be deniable like the air strikes are. There could be significant strategic advantages though. My guess is that by July, you'll start to see Ukrainian forces cross into Russia proper, in order to attempt to cut off the Russian forces in Ukraine.

[Eric VonSalzen]

Did you vote for Biden as President? Then this is on you. Sure, this isn't what you had in mind. You wanted to save the planet from warming, so you voted for the guy who would block pipelines and new oil and gas wells and fracking. You didn't worry that this would empower the Russian petrostate, but would have no discernible effect on global carbon emissions. You voted for a guy who had a decades-long record of screw-ups, and when he presided over a screwed-up surrender -- a SURRENDER!! -- in Afghanistan, didn't Putin see this as an engraved invitation to invade Ukraine. And what was Biden's first response to the Russian threat to invade Ukraine? He assured the world that there will be no US military response.

[DaivdBehar]

The cause of aggression is weakness. Biden is weak. Obama empowered our mortal enemies and kowtowed to them. Biden is controlled by Obama, and appeasement of the enemy continues.

[DaivdBehar]

National leaders are power hungry people. Weakness is irresistible to them. It is irresponsible to offer cake to an obese person, a bag of heroin to an addict. The same is true of weakness to a power addicted despot. Biden has been totally irresponsible.

The woke oligarchs behind Biden have done very well. This is not stupidity. It is a well tested and worn scheme.

[Sarcastr0]

As important as America is, the world does not revolve around American partisan politics.

[Ed Grinberg]

Eric explained how American partisan politics played a role in this fiasco.

[Sarcastr0]

No, he stated some pretty dodgy ipse dixit that America's energy policy was the but-for cause of Putin's invasion, followed by some general 'Biden bad' ranting.

In other words, indulging in the exact same fallacy I was talking about.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

He described a right-wing fever dream, fueled by desperation concerning the extant record and predictable trajectory of culture war.

Polemics and bitterness at that level indicate he may be auditioning for a spot at The Volokh Conspiracy.

(That solo demo from Pete led to this

[legalizeshrooms]

As it was said of Lincoln during the civil war era, it’s as though he were crafted for this time in history.

[Eugene Volokh]

"Cometh the hour, cometh the man."

[Ignorancevsstupidity]

Some Russians see their window with the dysfunctional globalist puppet administration of President Biden (see "2,000 Mules"). The Russians would not have had this window with a strong, fairly elected President. The CCP are also watching closely for their chance. As for Zelensky, his background is comedian, dancer, and actor. He is also part of a puppet administration for the purposes of containing Russia on its own borders, similar to if the Chinese were in Canada and Mexico by the U.S. borders, similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis when Russia had missiles in Cuba. You look for one person to blame or give credit to, but there will never be just one person, and you will often be disappointed.

[David Nieporent]

Let me guess: it was the (((you know who))), right?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Does anyone actually believe any news coming out of Ukraine?

We went from supposedly believing that there was little Ukraine could do to stop Russia from sacking Kiev and taking over the nation to now over 25,000 dead Russians and the northern Ukraine forces being at the Russian border sometime this week.

Maybe all that modern warfare tech provided by NATO was more powerful than anyone expected. Maybe the Russians are relying on too much old Soviet technology and have forces that are in disarray. Maybe the Ukrainians are organized more than original thought. Or maybe everything going on is just one giant lie wrapped in two more that is then wrapped in five more.

If there is a modicum of truth to the Russian woes in this invasion, then we ought to be happy. It means that in order to beat the army of a well organized and supplied nation all you need is some smart missiles and good intelligence. With continued assistance, the Ukrainian army ought to be at the doorstep of Moscow in a few months. Impressive. Not even Hitler could do that. No need to do anything to Putin. Just let the Ukrainians finish the job.

[Absaroka]

"Does anyone actually believe any news coming out of Ukraine?"

Generally speaking, a lot of what the Ukrainians say can be vetted by civvy satellite imagery, by geolocating video, and even by looking at the thermal hot spots on Fire Information Resource Management System (go to Ukraine and look at the history over the last couple of months ... something is making hot spots on approximately what the Ukrainians say is the front lines). The Brit MoD also releases updates from time to time that largely concur with what the Ukrainians are saying.

The Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar dot org) does a daily summary, and lists footnotes showing its sources.

So if there is a conspiracy to deceive, it is very widespread and doing a quite good job of keeping the details straight, from the Brit MOD to NASA to MAXAR to Google (their traffic reports showed detours around where the Ukrainians said there was fighting) to very well faked videos to the US government, etc, etc.

All that said, we don't have visibility into how badly the Ukrainians are hurt. They aren't publicizing that, for obvious reasons (any more than the Russians are detailing their losses). So there is a lot that those of us who aren't getting the classified briefings don't know - but there is a lot of credible info nonetheless, and it supports the general notion that the Ukrainians are holding their own, at least for now.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Oh I have no doubt that the broad brush strokes are probably "real" to some extent. I imagine the lies are caked into those to give them legitimacy.

Are there major battles going on? Sure. Are these happening the areas that are generally reported? Yes.

Outside of this though I don't think we know the details. Are these just skirmishes with the occasional "big bang" that ends up on the news? That seems at least likely.

How hard are the Russians really trying? My guess is that if they really wanted to bulldoze Ukraine, without nuclear weapons, is that it could have been done already. Or maybe they can't and what we are seeing is the fact that the Russian army was just a paper tiger.

Things don't make sense, and when that happens it usually means someone is lying. I think the question is not if there is disinformation, but how much and how deep does it run?

Functionally, it probably doesn't matter that much outside keeping the money flowing to Ukraine, which is one of the main points. If that has the effect of keeping the Russians in check, or if it means the Ukrainians are actually beating them, that is probably icing on the cake.

More importantly, if it does mean that a small scrappy group of resisters can hold up the armed forces of a major power, without any air support whatsoever, the face of modern warfare has forever changed. We should be paying real close attention to what is transpiring because that is the wave of the future.

[Absaroka]

"How hard are the Russians really trying? My guess is that if they really wanted to bulldoze Ukraine, without nuclear weapons, is that it could have been done already."

I'm fascinated to hear your theory about why Putin would be pulling his punches.

"More importantly, if it does mean that a small scrappy group of resisters can hold up the armed forces of a major power,..."

It's hardly the first time that people have called wars wrong. The Russians were surely surprised in Finland. Germany was surprised how quickly the French folded in WWII. Napoleon's early campaigns in Italy. The Japanese campaign against Singapore, the Italians against Greece, etc, etc, etc.

Also Afghanistan, Vietnam, ...

"We should be paying real close attention to what is transpiring because that is the wave of the future."

That is absolutely true, although it's not clear what the lessons would be if, for example, the Russians had radios that worked, or quality tires, or could perform combined arms warfare like the Red Army of 1945.

As an exercise, compare the orders of battle at the start or Barbarossa - on paper, Germany had a problem. But the performance of the Red Army in the first year or so was atrocious. By 1945 it wasn't. Or Israel vs various Arab armies. You can't just count tanks and planes and boots.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Theory....

I don't have any one in particular. Just that if a major modernized nation with a large military cannot bulldoze a smaller nation with no real military force then there is something else going on. One of those natural conclusions would be that Russia is not "trying" to do so for some reason.

Or maybe our intelligence on the state of Russia's military was just completely off.

Or maybe the Ukrainians, with some modern weaponry, can hold a poorly equipped force with low morale at bay.

Or maybe the entire objective of the offensive was to secure certain things that were not territory, at least in the North. (Like what was going on with all those labs close to the border....?)

I don't know exactly what is going on, but I do know enough to see that something is going on that does not meet the eye.

[Jon Rowe]

Russia wants to own Ukraine doesn't necessarily want to destroy it with nukes. Even if it Putin wanted to say, "if we can't own you we will destroy you with nukes" the rest of the world would destroy Russia.

Using a nuke would be insane and that's what the world needs to prevent.

The familiar relationship between Russia and Ukraine may be something like a controlling husband pleading with his wife not to leave but then engaging in an act of murder suicide when she does.

The world needs to prevent THAT.

[Jon Rowe]

Sorry I read your comment to read "My guess is that if they really wanted to bulldoze Ukraine, WITH nuclear weapons, is that it could have been done already."

Yes, Russia is trying to "bulldoze Ukraine" WITHOUTH nuclear weapons and is failing to do so.